Alexander Rossi is pleased with his performance during practice for the Canadian Grand Prix despite finishing at the bottom of the timesheets.

The Caterham reserve driver deputized for Kamui Kobayashi during FP1 on Friday in Montreal, marking the first time that he drove a 2014-spec F1 car. Nevertheless, his time was just four-tenths shy of Caterham regular Marcus Ericsson, and he was pleased to complete some good mileage.

“Yeah it was alright I think,” he explained when asked about his session by NBC Sports. “Obviously you always want to go quicker than the other car. I think that for the first foray, 27 laps is alright.

“There were some things that were very much as I expected, and some things that weren’t. At the end of the day, I accomplished the number one thing, which was to drive this year’s car to get an idea of what it’s about.”

Rossi last drove for Caterham during practice for the United States Grand Prix – his home race – but since then Formula 1 has seen a huge change in the regulations, making the cars very different to their 2013 predecessors.

“I wouldn’t say that there’s anything that’s the same, to be honest, other than the fact that it’s a green race car with four wheels,” Rossi said. “Everything’s completely different and the approach that you have to take is completely different as well. It’s a fun car to drive to be honest, it takes you back more to the junior formula days because it’s not a race car that’s just on rails.”

Now, Rossi is turning his attention back to his GP2 campaign with Caterham Racing. He will next drive a Formula 1 car at the race in Austin later this year.

“This is a great experience. I’m very thankful to the team for the opportunity. I have a lot of work to do in GP2, so starting right now, my mind is going back to GP2 and how we can improve that situation. Come Austin, I think the car will be very different than what I just drove anyway, so it will be a new kind of experience to adapt to.”

Hey Luke, what’s up with NBC not allowing their app to airplay through Apple TV? If I’m paying for a cable subscription and suffering through an inordinate amount of ads, I should at least be able to watch the content I’m legally paying for through my big TV, just as I can with all of my other legal streaming video services.